Silky carrot butterfly

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Silky carrot butterfly
Erebia gorge.triopes.jpg

Silky Moore Butterfly ( Erebia gorge )

Systematics
Class : Insects (Insecta)
Order : Butterflies (Lepidoptera)
Family : Noble butterfly (Nymphalidae)
Subfamily : Eye butterflies (Satyrinae)
Genre : Mohrenfalter ( Erebia )
Type : Silky carrot butterfly
Scientific name
Erebia gorge
( Huebner , 1804)
Underside of the silky-gloss moth

Erebia gorge , less common also silky-gloss carrot , gorge carrot or rock carrot, is a butterfly ( butterfly ) from the family of noble butterflies (Nymphalidae). The specific epithet is derived from Gorge , one of the fifty daughters of Danaos from Greek mythology .

features

butterfly

The moths have a wingspan of about 26 to 32 millimeters. The size tends to decrease with increasing size. The front wings of the moths are dark brown in color and show a silky, often slightly purple-red sheen. The type is very variable in the drawing and formation of the eye spots. In the post-disk region there is a broad orange-brown or red-brown band with usually two (up to five) black, white pithed eye spots; these can also be completely absent. Specimens with three eyes at the apex are classified as f. triopes , those with an eyeless rust-red band as f. called erynis . On the dark brown hind wings a reddish brown band with a few white seeded eye spots is mostly indistinct, but these features are often completely absent. The fringing area often has a slightly bluish tinge. The hind wing undersides are streak-like dark gray or dark brown, slightly dusty whitish and have a characteristic, more or less sharply demarcated, wide, mostly anthracite-black, strongly jagged band in the post-disk region. Occasionally, small white eye spots are visible on the outer edge. The males have an easily recognizable scented scented spot on the upper side of the front wing. Males and females have a somewhat irregular outer edge of the hind wing. In the case of core M3, it usually protrudes significantly.

The egg is flattened at both poles, the outside has longitudinal ribs. The number of ribs varies from 22 to 31 ribs. Shortly after the egg is laid, the egg is light yellow; after a few days it turns gray with some darker spots.

There are two color variants of the caterpillar , the basic color is either greenish or brownish (red-brownish, beige). So far, only brownish caterpillars have been observed in breeding. In the L4 stage, the dark brown to black colored back line is lined with white or yellowish white. The secondary ridge lines are initially black-brown, later only slightly olive green. The epistigmal sideline, which is brightly delimited towards the back, is initially a wide olive-colored band with a wedge mark in the middle of the segment, later only the wedge mark remains. The stigmatic lateral line is initially still weakly recognizable, but the color disappears completely towards the end of the L4 stage. The head is dark green, olive green or brownish in color. The caterpillar has branched bristles.

The pupa is about 11 to 11.5 mm long. It looks stocky with a relatively blunt-ended abdomen. The thorax and wing sheaths are greenish in color, the head and abdomen are light brown in color. There is a relatively broad but weakly drawn, brown-green back line. Epistigmatic and foot stripes are colored gray-olive, the stigmas themselves red-brown. The cremaster is rounded and has no bristles.

Similar species

There is a certain similarity to the species Iridescent Mohrenfalter ( Erebia tyndarus ) and Erebia cassioides . However, both species have more rounded wings and never more than two eye spots on the forewings and the wings of tyndarus often shimmer slightly greenish-gold. The main difference, however, is the lighter color of the back of the rear wing.

Geographical distribution and habitat

Erebia gorge occurs in the Cantabrian Mountains , the Pyrenees , Alps , Apuseni Mountains , Apennines , Carpathians , the mountains of the Balkans and in the Dinaric Mountains at altitudes of around 1600 to over 3200 meters. The species flies on rocky places with little vegetation and scree slopes, erosion sites, moraines, steep banks of mountain streams, dry grasslands with scree and can be quite numerous in individual places.

Way of life

Erebia gorge have a two year development cycle . The moths fly from July to mid-September. They are extremely active fliers and fly in low, fast flight in the sunshine together with the Eismo Eiskurfalter ( Erebia pluto ) over scree fields and like to sunbathe on rocks or at the tips of juniper branches ( Juniperus ). The female cemented the eggs individually to withered parts of the plant just a few centimeters above the ground. The egg caterpillars hatch in summer, around 10 to 12 days after they have laid their eggs. They hibernate as L1 or L2. After the first hibernation, the caterpillar grows very slowly. The caterpillars feed on various types of grass (Poaceae). Tolman & Lewington give as food plants: Small bluegrass ( Poa minor ), Poa alpina ( Poa alpina ), Lime Blue Grass ( Sesleria albicans ) and alpine fescue ( Festuca alpina ). Sonderegger also gives rock fescue ( Festuca halleri ), low fescue ( Festuca quadriflora ) and violet fescue ( Festuca violacea ) as host plants. The caterpillar overwinters a second time in the 3rd instar. After the second hibernation it sheds its skin quickly to L4 and then grows very quickly. It pupates in just one to several weeks. In nature the doll lies freely under stones. In breeding, on the other hand, the caterpillar spins a small chamber from a few threads and dry parts of the plant. The puppet rest in nature takes about 4 weeks.

Taxonomy

The taxonomy of the species, especially the subdivision of the species into subspecies, is still under discussion. A total of about 30 species and subspecies as well as in the infraspecific range (variety, shape, aberration and modification) have been proposed for this species. Two subspecies are generally excreted in the Alps. A third population, which was originally proposed as an independent species and was later placed as a subspecies to Erebia gorge , is erynis Esper, 1805. Sonderegger (2005) only grants it form status, subject to an overall revision of the species.

  • Erebia gorge gorge (Hübner, 1804), moths of different sizes with mostly two points (or without points),
  • Erebia gorge triopes Speyer, 1865, medium-sized to large moths with three or more eye-spots, common south of the Inn, rare north of the Inn, very rare in the rest of the Alps
  • Erebia gorge f. ramondi Oberthür, 1909, Pyrenees, hind wing upper and lower side with four to five eye spots, forewings with two eye spots, rarely also three eye spots
  • Erebia gorge f. erynis (Esper, 1805), there are no eye spots, mainly Maritime and Western Alps, rare in the other Alps

The following non-alpine subspecies or varieties can be found in the more recent literature:

  • Erebia gorge albanica Rebel, 1917, post disk band on the upper side of the forewings in the males narrow and indistinct, with small white pithead eye spots in M1 to M3. The upper side of the hind wing is almost black and without drawing. The hind wing underside is dark brown with an indistinctly limited band in the fringe area, Albania, Montenegro, - Serbia
  • Erebia gorge vagana Lorković, 1954, Croatia
  • Erebia gorge hercegovinensis Rebel, 1903, Bosnia-Herzegovina
  • Erebia gorge rudkowskii (Bang-Haas, 1933), Tatra Mountains (Slovakia / Poland)
  • Erebia gorge fridericikoenigi Varga, 1999, Piatra Craiului Mountains , Romania
  • Erebia gorge carboncina Verity, 1916, the moths are smaller, somewhat darker with narrower post-disk bands , the eye spots are very small to absent, Apuan Alps, Middle Apennines, Monti Sibillini (Italy)
  • Erebia gorge var. Gigantea Oberthür, 1884, very large butterfly, Cantabrian Mountains

Danger

In Germany, the species occurs only in a few places in the Bavarian Alps and is listed on the Red List of Endangered Species in Category R (extremely rare species with geographical restrictions).

swell

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Red lists at Science4you
  2. ↑ Erebia gorge, Felsen-Mohrenfalter, Identification Aid of the Lepiforum , accessed on May 31, 2016.
  3. ^ Arnold Spuler: The butterflies of Europe . tape 1 . E. Schweitzerbartsche Verlagbuchhandlung, Stuttgart 1908, p. 38 .
  4. ↑ D. Hans Freiherr von der Goltz: The Erebien. A look at life as a whole. Entomologische Rundschau, 52: 9-14, 28-37, 47-50, 58-66, 78-81, 91-99, 05-110, 124-127, 162-164, 172-174, Stuttgart, 1935
  5. ↑ I. Mihoci, M. and N. Šašić Tvrtković: New data on the distribution of the Croatian endemic butterfly Erebia stirius kleki Lorkovi, 1955 (Papilionoidea, Nymphalidae, Satyrinae). Nat. Croat., 16 (2): 139-146, Zagreb 2007 PDF .
  6. ↑ Suvad Lelo: Revised inventory of the butterflies of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Insecta: Lepidoptera: Hesperioidea, Papilionidea). Nat. Croat., 9 (2): 139-156, Zagreb 2000 PDF .
  7. ↑ Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (Ed.): Red List of Endangered Animals in Germany . Landwirtschaftsverlag, Münster 1998, ISBN 3-89624-110-9 .

literature

  • Walter Forster and Theodor A. Wohlfahrt: Butterflies of Central Europe. Volume II. Butterfly diurna (Rhopalocera and Hesperiidae). Franckh'sche Verlagshandlung, Stuttgart 1955
  • Peter Sonderegger: The Erebia of Switzerland (Lepidoptera: Satyrinae, Genus Erebia) . 712 pp., Biel / Bienne 2005
  • Tom Tolman and Richard Lewington: The butterflies of Europe and Northwest Africa , Franckh-Kosmos Verlags-GmbH & Co, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-440-07573-7
  • W. John Tennent: A checklist of the satyrine genus Erebia (Lepidoptera) (1758-2006). Zootaxa 1900: 1-109, Auckland, 2008 PDF - abstract and first page

annotation

  1. ↑ The German names are unusual; Sonderegger (2005) explicitly states: "No common German name" (available). Tolman & Lewington (1998) also do not give a German trivial name.

Web links

Commons : Seidenglanz-Mohrenfalter  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files